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Comment by tdeck | Hacker News Reader

As someone who has never shoplifted in my life, this makes me deeply uncomfortable.

If it's acceptable for a business to use drones to tail a (suspected) shoplifter, what stops a business from using them to tail a regular customer to collect marketing data?

What if I am curious where someone I work with lives, is it OK to use a drone to follow them home?

I would argue that it's obviously not OK but it seems like there is no law against this in the US unless you have a restraining order, perhaps.

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Since the time I was 15 or 16, I have been regularly targeted by loss prevention as a potential threat. To this day, 30y later, it's become a running joke w/my kids about when we'll be 'bothered', stopped, or outright harassed by employees (plain clothed or uniformed) for doing nothing other than shopping in a way that is somehow different than they expect.

I have never shoplifted, but yet, here we are. While it's a mild annoyance to be stopped and asked if I need any help by two retail employees alongside a uniformed LPP (I refuse to call them officers) or asked to produce a receipt--even if we're just browsing to kill time and I didn't buy anything, now I may be pursued by a fucking drone because some algorithm or human operator has decided I'm somehow doing something they don't like?

I am genuinely terrified.

At least in the short term, I think the economics will prevent stores from using this for marketing data. Operating these drones has to very, very expensive and I don't think knowing about your driving habits for a few miles is worth the cost.

The only reason these things could be economical in the short term is because theft costs retail companies an insanely high amount of money.

However, this might change if these drones become cheaper to operate and purchase.

I would think there's some crime that would prevent people from using these to the extremes. I am almost certain it's illegal to put an air tag on someone to track their whereabouts and I would also think those laws would apply here.

> What stops a business from using them to tail a regular customer to collect marketing data?

I wonder if anyone's considered starting a business of leasing space on urban roofs and building facades, installing cameras, and then selling the footage of all the foot traffic. Sounds a lot easier than drones.

So you mean Flock? Except even better, people pay them to install the cameras.

Flock is the company behind the drones in this article, so we've come full circle.

Read up on the company behind this (Flock Safety). Their entire mission is to set up a surveillence state in the USA.

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